THE ULTIMATE SURVIVAL GUIDE TO BEDTIME MONSTERS

Most children experience fear of things that go bump in the night; here, Frost aims to alleviate those concerns with a dash of humor and a pinch of hygiene.

At Goodnight Labs, they don’t fool around. A diverse team of kid scientists, with lab coats, bubbling beakers, and somewhat questionable lab safety, have cracked the key techniques to help kids rid themselves of bedtime monsters of all sorts. Grown-ups will surely appreciate steps No. 1 and No. 2, which inform readers that both clean bedrooms and clean teeth are anathema to bedtime monsters. Of course, having a sleepover with all your favorite toys will help too. Most of the recommended techniques, however, focus less on what children might do to send monsters packing and more on making monsters appear too ridiculous to be frightening, a sense that’s ably reinforced by Parton’s humorously imagined bugaboos. Given the ubiquity of bedtime-monster literature available, it’s too bad this guide doesn’t provide practically helpful tools for dealing with the nighttime scaries. Classics like Ed Emberley’s Go Away, Big Green Monster (1993) and Mercer Mayer’s There’s a Nightmare in My Closet (1960) or the more recent I Need My Monster, by Amanda Noll and illustrated by Howard McWilliam (2009), fill this niche with greater artistry. When bedtime monsters are particularly intractable, however, this may serve as booster bibliotherapy for such stalwarts.

A satisfactory if not stellar addition to bedtime bookshelves.